It's Not About The Money

Essentialism
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[00:00:00]

Steve might have too many things going on
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[00:00:00] Steve: What if the cold open is no cold open?

[00:00:03] Tyler: I'm okay with that.

[00:00:03] Steve: Hello, dear listener. I am Steve.

[00:00:12] Tyler: And I'm Tyler and welcome to another episode of It's Not About The Money, where we discuss a wide range of topics related to creating and running small businesses.

[00:00:22] Steve: Tyler and I are both small business owners like you, and this podcast is our attempt to read books and talk about them and make sense of the world one episode at a time.

[00:00:34] Tyler: And today we are talking about one of my original favorite books in the world of business and self help or whatever genre this is, which is Known as Essentialism by Greg McKeown.

[00:00:48] Steve: I just finished reading this book, like, the other day, and I have a lot of thoughts. I'm wondering if I have too many things going on in my life right now.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Tyler: So sounds like you got the message of the book.

[00:01:02] Steve: guess so, yeah. So, so I, I have started doing a thing, this is the first book I've done it with, but, um, I heard about it on an interview with Nick Hutchison, who wrote Rise of the Reader. What he does is at the beginning of each book, he'll write inside the front cover what his intention is for the book. So like, what, what is he expecting to get out of it? Or what does he think the book will be about?

Or how does he think it might change his mind or, uh, anyway, what's the intention? So I did that with this one, uh, and I was already aware at that time that this book might make me think that I have too many things going on and I need to scale some of them back or focus a little more. And I think that panned out.

[00:01:48] Tyler: Okay, that's good to know. I'm really excited that you just had a recent experience with this book, because I want to compare that perspective that you have, having just read it, with my perspective. I have not read this book for years, but I've read it multiple [00:02:00] times in the past, and I think about it all the time, and I really, when I say it's like one of my original favorite books, it really is, uh, in this space, because it's really impacted how I try to live my life.

So, we'd have two kind of different, Perspectives in terms of how recently we've read the book, but, uh, I want to hear more about, yeah, what, what, what was your intent? Do you, can you share your intention that you wrote down there or

[00:02:24] Steve: Well, okay, I'll read it to you I expect to gain greater clarity about the aspects of my life that are most essential and which should be deprioritized. I want to know whether the individual realms of my life will have their own hierarchies Home life, day job Tax business, extended family, community. I'm curious whether this will give me insight about when to switch from full time salaried employment to full time entrepreneurship as I feel that dividing my efforts as I've done this last year may not be the most conducive to success in either.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Tyler: A reasonable fear.

[00:03:01] Steve: Yeah,

[00:03:02] Tyler: interesting. So then you read the book, high level. I'm just curious to, did you get some of the things that you were expecting out of the book?

[00:03:10] Steve: I do still feel the same like this It's kind of strengthened that feeling of, I might be dividing my efforts up too much to be as successful as I want to in any of them. There's only so many hours in the day. And uh, like my day job is a different field than taxes. And so it's, it's like a different, um, it's a different corpus of knowledge that I need for those two things.

Like some of the skills are similar across the two, but the knowledge that I need is different.

[00:03:43] Tyler: Yeah. It's kind of like going broad versus going deep.

[00:03:46] Steve: Yeah. Yeah, and also, the skills that I need to grow a business are different from the skills I need to be promoted as an [00:04:00] employee,

[00:04:01] Tyler: Mm hmm.

[00:04:01] Steve: that makes sense. Growing a business

[00:04:03] Tyler: Tell me more about that. That's interesting.

[00:04:05] Steve: uh, marketing, client relationships, well I need some of that in the day job, but,

[00:04:11] Tyler: So you're saying, like, you have a choice about what skills to learn and get better at. Some of them are going to make you a better employee. Some of them are going to make you a better business owner. And some of them, probably most of them, I can imagine, have crossover. Maybe not in equal, you know, measure.

[00:04:26] Steve: That's accurate. Yeah. Yeah, like I, I think they're useful in both realms, but, uh, like marketing, for example, has way more leverage in the small business than it does in the employee relationship. Just because I'm not doing the marketing for the firm at the day job, but I am, I am the entire marketing department for Daybreak Tax.

[00:04:49] Tyler: Right. Well, that makes sense. Well, and this kind of speaks to one of the ideas that's always stuck out to me in the book, which is like, it encourages you to ask a lot of [00:05:00] questions about what are the most important things to you. And, uh, Keep asking those questions until you get to like the root cause, sort of like the root question, which will help you inform all of the future decisions that you make in your life.

And the way he phrases that in the book is if you could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be? I think that's a really interesting question because. One thing is not very many things, and life is big and broad and full of a lot of responsibilities. And you talk about the different areas of your life and wondering if there's going to be like a hierarchy in them, or that you could discern more clearly, like, what's the hierarchy between my personal life, my family life, my job, my business, my community, all these different things.

Like already, that's more than one thing.

[00:05:46] Steve: Yeah.

[00:05:46] Tyler: this, this concept of, you know, asking yourself, if you had to choose only one thing to be excellent at, what would it be kind of like obliterates the concept of a hierarchy, which is one of the challenging things I find about this book. And I don't know if it's [00:06:00] like, if I agree with it necessarily,

[00:06:03] Steve: Mm.

[00:06:03] Tyler: but it's a good exercise.

[00:06:05] Steve: interesting. At one point he, uh, phrases it as essentialists who sometimes dabble in non essentialism versus non essentialists who sometimes have essential tendencies or something like that.

[00:06:21] Tyler: okay.

[00:06:21] Steve: Where, uh, so phrasing it as kind of a spectrum where you can be, you're going to have both tendencies at any given point, but which, uh, which one is your default sort of thing?

"Very few things are exceptionally valuable"
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[00:06:34] Tyler: Right. So kind of going along with that idea, I've got a question for you about, I want to know what you think about the statement from the book, because this is something I think about a lot. And then the quote goes like this, the overwhelming reality is we live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. How does that resonate with you? Or what does that, what do you think about that?

[00:06:58] Steve: Hmm.

[00:06:58] Tyler: It's kind of a bold [00:07:00] statement.

[00:07:00] Steve: that is a bold statement. Uh, what was the context? I think it might be true. Right.

[00:07:08] Tyler: I, I think, uh, I mean, I don't know. It's like, what? Very few things are exceptionally valuable. How are we defining value here, I guess? I don't know. But, that matter the most to you, I think is what he's going for here. You could look at this from a business context. Like, if you're running a business, like, what are the fewest, most potent activities or products you could sell or engage in that are going to have the biggest bang for your buck, right?

Produce the most profits. Et cetera. So like there's that side of it, but also I think there's like the personal side of it, right? So like out of all the things in your life, including your career, your business, your family, et cetera, like what very few things have mean the most to you personally. So I think there's different ways of, of looking at that.

And I kind of read the book from both [00:08:00] perspectives. Like I read it as, uh, uh, a middle manager in my day job. That was like a primary perspective from which I read this book. I also read it from my perspective just as a human being, right. That is much more than my job or my career. So I think you can kind of look at it different ways like that and maybe get different answers.

Yeah.

[00:08:23] Steve: kind of what I was getting at in my intention is that the hierarchies within all of those spheres of life, like you can, as you said, you can read the book as like, what would be the most important things to do in my day job here as a manager? What can I get rid of? And what do I really need to focus on?

And, and then you can also apply it like kind of separately or in parallel to the rest of your life as a whole, like, knowing that the job needs to happen, it's kind of siloed off. Interesting, but that's the [00:09:00] Pareto principle, right? Is that 80 percent of the gains come from 20 percent of the effort?

[00:09:08] Tyler: Yeah. And I think the, the, one of the messages of the book is encouraging you to identify what are the 20 percent of things, or the one thing, if you want to be dramatic, like he is, you know, that produce the biggest, uh, amount of results and basically just like avoid doing the rest at all costs or as much as you reasonably can, because it's just going to distract you from what's essential.

Focused forward movement
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[00:09:31] Steve: Mm hmm. He has a diagram in here of There are two circles, and one of them has a whole bunch of arrows going in all directions, and the arrows are very short.

[00:09:42] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:09:43] Steve: And then the other circle has the same magnitude of arrows, but they're all pointing in the same direction, and it's a very long arrow. The idea being, if you're, if you're split, your efforts, your attention are split, many different [00:10:00] ways, you're not going to make progress in, Much progress in any of them.

You move, like, just a little bit in a million different directions. Where if you can focus it all in one direction, you can move quite far.

[00:10:12] Tyler: I mean, that's also, it's, I love that diagram as well. Cause it's basically just like vectors, right? So like in the math sense, like if you add all these vectors together, if you're going in a bunch of different directions equally, you go, you're, you move zero, you stay put, right? You don't, you don't make progress.

[00:10:29] Steve: Uh, yeah, true.

Whereas if your vectors are at least going in similar direction, you're going somewhere

[00:10:34] Steve: mm hmm. Almost everything is noise, and very few things are exceptionally valuable. Is that the quote you read?

[00:10:41] Tyler: it's, uh, no, but it's, uh, it's the same. He repeats that idea different ways throughout the book.

[00:10:47] Steve: Yeah. Okay.

[00:10:49] Tyler: be, it might be worth just zooming out for a second for anyone who has not read the book yet. I mean, as you might be able to tell from the title, uh, the point of this book is to help you understand, you know, [00:11:00] what your greatest contribution can be by giving a good hard look at your life, deciding what's the most important or essential part of your life that you want to focus on, your life or your job, or your career, I should say.

[00:11:12] Steve: And the subtitle is The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. And one phrase that he uses frequently is, less but better,

[00:11:21] Tyler: Oh, I love that. I love that. Less but better.

[00:11:25] Steve: which I think he attributed to the designer at Braun, whose name is Dieter Rams.

Yeah, Dieter Rams, said less but better, and he quotes that quite a few times throughout the book.

[00:11:41] Tyler: That's one of those lines that stuck with me over the years since I've read this book, is less but better. Because I'm kind of attracted to the idea of Quality, like whatever I do, I would like it to be of the highest quality that I can achieve given the resources that I have.

[00:11:57] Steve: Mm

[00:11:57] Tyler: And that's been a helpful thing [00:12:00] for me as I try to, like sometimes when I'm feeling overwhelmed and I can't do it all, which happens, I just think, you know, I can't do it all, but what I can do, I just want to do the best that I can. kind of become a mantra for me, less but better.

[00:12:14] Steve: And that sounds very liberating as well. Like, paradoxically, putting those limits on yourself to say, I can't do all of these things, so I'm just going to do these ones. That kind of frees you up to be really good at those, those particular things that you've chosen.

Unacknowledged workaholism?
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[00:12:32] Tyler: Yeah. So I'm curious when you were reading this book, you already kind of mentioned the different areas of your life and your intention in reading the book. So as you read though, did you find yourself thinking more about this at the personal level or the professional level? Or both? This is now a

[00:12:52] Steve: Uh, some of both. Um, and here's why. The primary

[00:12:59] Tyler: [00:13:00] huh.

[00:13:00] Steve: constraint I'm feeling right now is, um, well, what is it? I want to be really good at my work. And I want to not have that take over too much of my time so that I can focus the rest of it on my family. And, I don't know, I'm wondering if I am a workaholic and I haven't realized it or acknowledged it yet, Uh, in the sense that my I have some free time and I feel like I should be doing things right now. Like there's stuff to do, needs to get done. Rather than giving myself permission to rest or relax or just be.

[00:13:53] Tyler: Oh yeah. That's interesting. Where do you think that, uh, desire to be busy comes from? Is that like, because you [00:14:00] have a to do list that exists and it's not completed all the way, all the way? Or is it like maybe,

[00:14:05] Steve: If

[00:14:07] Tyler: or is it a mindset thing? Like what you're saying? We're just like, you know what, I've done my work for the day. There's always going to be more work.

I'm going to stop for today or I don't know. What do you, that wasn't really a question. Sorry.

[00:14:17] Steve: yeah, well, no, I think when, uh, before I was trying to build a business on top of a day job, when I just had the day job, I think I, I was better at saying work's done. I don't have to worry about it anymore. I can just turn that off.

[00:14:33] Tyler: But now you have an unlimited opportunity in front of you for things to do to build your business when you're not at

[00:14:38] Steve: Mm-Hmm. And there's unlimited opportunity is a good way to phrase that. Like there's so much, so much that could get done that would potentially be beneficial, that it feels like all of it should get done. All of it needs to get done. It would be virtuous if more of it got done.

[00:14:57] Tyler: Right.

[00:14:57] Steve: I don't know whether that's true. It's [00:15:00] probably not. Cause there, there's, there, there's always, what's this?

Evaluating opportunities on multiple levels
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[00:15:05] Steve: " If we search for a good opportunity, then we will find scores of pages for us to think about and work through. Instead, we can conduct an advanced search and ask three questions. What do I feel deeply inspired by? And what am I particularly talented at, and what meets a significant need in the world?

Naturally, there won't be as many pages to view, but this is the point of the exercise. We aren't looking for a plethora of good things to do. We are looking for our highest level of contribution. The right thing, the right way, at the right time."

[00:15:37] Tyler: Well, I think in some ways you've been through that and that's how you landed on Tax Professional as a business.

[00:15:45] Steve: Hmm, yeah.

[00:15:47] Tyler: like, like, you know, what? I don't remember exactly what the wording was, but you know what, what, um

[00:15:54] Steve: Inspired by, talented at, and what meets a need in the world. And it does [00:16:00] kind of fit all three of those. Hehe,

[00:16:04] Tyler: You know, the more we talk about this, I think practically speaking, you kind of have to take this at multiple levels of analysis to stay sane. And I do like with the, with the highest level analysis being you as a person, right? So you've got yourself, that you have to take care of your family you have to take care of.

Your job, your business, there's all these areas of your life that you listed out. So I think that's like the highest level of analysis is within the realm of all those things. You need to find the few things that bring you the most joy that mean the most to you, et cetera. And then within each of that, we'll generate a list of categories.

Maybe it's like you, your family, your job, your business. I don't know what it's going to be for you. Right. But you do that. But then within each of those, you also need to take some time to identify what few things within each of those areas of responsibility are going to have the biggest impact [00:17:00] within the realm of that area of responsibility.

So what, what are the few activities in your tax business? That are going to produce the most profound results for you. What are the few activities with your family? They're going to do the same there. And the few activities in your day job, you know, I, I, I can't see a way to not divide it up like that.

Otherwise you would be like a Steve Jobs, which, which, you know, there are visionaries out there who have made huge impacts on the world by being like singularly focused on only one thing. Also, not necessarily known for their happiness, slash, balance, slash, kindness, or whatever, right? So,

[00:17:47] Steve: Okay. I think that's a great point. That, like, I do have all of these things going on and I want the, I want them to all be there. Uh, and so this, uh, [00:18:00] I could apply this within each of those realms to say, given the constraints that I have right now, what is the most impactful thing to do in each of these categories?

[00:18:11] Tyler: Because I don't think it sounds great for anybody to be like, My essential thing is becoming a billionaire. And so, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna say no to everything. Family. Romance. Community service, whatever, you know what I mean? It's like, and I will do nothing else because I'm focused on building. I mean, I don't know who am I to judge, but, but for me personally, I kind of see this applying well within a hierarchy, like you mentioned in your intention for sitting out to read the book.

[00:18:40] Steve: Yeah. And I could say something like, My intention is to be a good father. Like, that's my singular focus, but I have to work to provide for the family to be able to do that.

[00:18:52] Tyler: You could put that as a sub thing of being a good father, right?

[00:18:56] Steve: Yes, right. And so then, but then it kind of needs [00:19:00] its own set of Uh, things to focus on in order for that to continue functioning properly.

[00:19:09] Tyler: Right.

[00:19:10] Steve: Hmm. Yeah. Okay. I like your idea of the multiple levels of analysis here.

[00:19:16] Tyler: Well, I mean, that's just the, that's how I keep myself sane. Cause sometimes when I read books like this, I'm like, I must follow the book. I must do the thing. I must only focus on one thing, you know, or, you know, the most essential things and nothing else. But I don't know if that's always practical.

[00:19:30] Steve: right. And, and I think a book is powerful when it challenges your, the way you think. And so sometimes it might have to present it as a little bit extreme in order to get you. To think, oh, well, maybe that's true. And so how do I, how does, how do I make that fit for me?

[00:19:48] Tyler: Yeah. And I think, you know, another underlying message of this book is to make sure that you are doing things in your life because they are important to you and because you decided to do them and not because. You're letting other [00:20:00] people, you know, dictate those priorities for you. Like there's a great line in the book.

It's just simple. You know, if you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. So really, this is just an argument as a book for personal re take, take responsibility for the things that are important in your life. And if you are always finding yourself complaining, like, Oh, my family is so important and just never have time.

And it's like, is it, is it the most important thing? Or like, you know, take some responsibility for that. Like make some choices, some tough choices, some essentialist choices, you know, and, and correct the balance. So I kind of like that message as well.

[00:20:34] Steve: Yeah. I like that too. Life is going to happen one way or the other, but you can play a big role in designing it if you want.

[00:20:43] Tyler: Yeah.

Tradeoffs
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[00:20:45] Steve: Another theme I liked, uh, is about trade offs and. Um, everything is, well, let me read a couple quotes here. Essentialists see trade offs as an inherent [00:21:00] part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, what do I have to give up, they ask, what do I want to go big on? The cumulative impact of this small change in thinking can be profound. And then this other one, trade offs are not something to be ignored or decried. They are something to be embraced and made deliberately, strategically, and thoughtfully. That's kind of what we were just saying. You've got to make trade offs in life, and so you might as well be deliberate about them.

[00:21:25] Tyler: I guess this is where I plug budgeting for personal

[00:21:28] Steve: Ah, budgeting!

[00:21:30] Tyler: Sorry, everybody. I had, I had to do it. But this is, you know, you can apply essentialism to any part of your life, including how you spend your money. And when I read these parts about trade offs, that's what I thought about a lot, because

[00:21:41] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:21:42] Tyler: just like time in our life is kind of a finite thing and we need to. Choose what to do with it and whatever we do with it. We're saying, you know, when we say yes to doing something, we're actually saying no to doing everything else that we possibly could be doing. Right. Uh, same, same with our money. And we have a whole episode about how everything in [00:22:00] life is budgeting. And I think this kind of just supports that idea as much as the word budgeting has a bad rap and a negative connotation, it's, it's really, you know. So let's use a different word. Trade offs. Life is about trade

[00:22:13] Steve: Yeah.

[00:22:16] Tyler: And I think the point he's making in this book is like, if you understand that, your life gets a lot easier and a lot less stressful because you're conscious that you have the choice to make the trade off, and therefore you can live with the consequences because it's a conscious choice. You're not feeling like, ooh, getting FOMO or like, regrets.

Oh, I did this, I made this choice and now I missed out on this thing over here. Cause like, no, you own it. You already know it's a trade off. You know, you're going to be missing out on other things and you're okay with it because they're not as important to you.

[00:22:46] Steve: Mm hmm.

"No is a complete sentence"
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[00:22:46] Tyler: He also has some parts of this book that I think are pretty good about like how to implement these ideas. One that sticks out to me is there's a big page in the book. I, or not a big page. There's a page in the book where I think there's just [00:23:00] like one line on the whole page or something.

It's like a bold sentence. If I remember correctly, it just says. No is a complete sentence. And I just love that. I've, that is along with the mantra that I mentioned before that I've adopted from this which is Less But Better. No is a complete sentence is like the other one I say that to myself all the time because as we're kind of like fielding incoming assignments, priorities, people ask us to do stuff that we weren't expecting.

We don't actually owe them a reason. I mean, sometimes it's nice to be polite and be like, Oh, I wish I could, but da, da, da, da, right. But actually it can be said, you can just say no, but thank you. Or just no. And like, that's a full sentence. I love that. I love that idea. It doesn't have to be complicated to people.

[00:23:52] Steve: Yeah. And he's got a couple of pages of like ways you can say no without having to [00:24:00] say the word no if that, if that's difficult for you.

[00:24:03] Tyler: Right.

[00:24:05] Steve: You know, there are diplomatic ways of saying it or phrasing it in terms of the trade offs that you would have to make. Like, especially if it's a request coming from your boss, like, okay, I, I can do that.

What do you want me to deprioritize in order to make time for that?

[00:24:19] Tyler: Yeah. If your boss asks you to do something, you probably don't want us to be like, no. And then don't say anything else. That's probably not the right moment for that.

[00:24:27] Steve: right,

[00:24:27] Tyler: a good point.

[00:24:28] Steve: right. Uh, but making clear to them, like these, these are the constraints that I have, and I want to do, uh, what we both think is best for the team here, but. I want your input on what's, what needs to go move down a rung in order for this thing to happen. And maybe the answer is, well, actually this is not that important.

So don't worry about it. I'll find somebody else to do this.

[00:24:51] Tyler: You know, it's interesting as a manager, I find that to be, uh, I do that a lot. I might with, with the people that I manage, [00:25:00] it's really important to me that they feel like they can say that kind of thing to me and I see it as part of my job to help answer that question for them. It's like, well, okay.

What are you going to not do instead? And so I think we've got a pretty good, I mean, you know, they might disagree, but I feel like, you know, over the years we've kind of built up a good relationship around that where it's like, I'm conscious of the things that they're working on or try to be. And I expect them to tell me if they're getting overloaded and so that I can help them.

I could tell them basically, okay, yeah, stop doing that. Do this instead if necessary.

[00:25:31] Steve: Mm hmm. You sound like a good manager.

[00:25:34] Tyler: I try. I think being a good manager is actually super difficult. Like, but, but yes, that's like one of my, one of the things I really aspire to, to, to do. So yeah, I hope so. And I've also been lucky to have great managers throughout my career. Not all of them, but most of them, uh, including my current one, uh, who also does this for me, actually, which is pretty awesome.

So

[00:25:59] Steve: Oh, [00:26:00] great.

[00:26:01] Tyler: did you ever read, have you ever, have you heard that line from the book, Alice in Wonderland, that the Cheshire Cat says, I can't quote it directly, but it's basically, you know, Alice asks. This cat, you know, which path should I take? And the cat says, well, where, where do you want to go? And she says, I don't know.

And he says something like, well, then it doesn't matter which path you take. Right. Cause if you don't know where you want to go, then one path is as good as the next. Um, there's the, uh, Greg talks about that in this book too. He said, uh, "When we don't know what we're really trying to achieve, all change is arbitrary."

I find that

[00:26:37] Steve: Oh, that's an interesting way to say it.

[00:26:41] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:26:41] Steve: is arbitrary.

[00:26:44] Tyler: Like it doesn't really mean anything unless you assign it meaning by having a purpose or a goal or knowing what you're trying to do.

[00:26:50] Steve: I noticed reading this that's kind

Intentional time for strategic thinking
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[00:26:55] Tyler: uh, this book can help people think through what is it they're really trying to [00:27:00] achieve so they stop making arbitrary changes and start making purposeful changes and trade offs.

[00:27:13] Steve: the importance of having space to think. Whether that's purposely taking time out of a day of the week to not have tasks that need to be done, just thinking strategically, thinking at a higher level of, rather than just executing, stepping back a little bit, I think that might be something that I lack at the moment.

[00:27:36] Tyler: You know, that is interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think that is, that is something that I have definitely been lacking in my life. You know, in our previous episodes where we talked about productivity a little bit and even like the Getting Things Done method, a lot of times it's easy to focus on action items and lists and to dos and kind of get lost, uh, you know, [00:28:00] in that world of organizing the work and executing the work, as opposed to thinking about what is the work that we should even be doing in the first place.

[00:28:07] Steve: But it's super important because you could go down a road of like, I'm getting stuff done and then step back and realize, well, actually, that did not get me anywhere near where I want to do. That was the wrong stuff to do. I should have been doing this all along. And if you had just taken five, 10 minutes a day, a week beforehand to realize that, it would have saved you a lot of time.

[00:28:29] Tyler: Yeah. And so I, I, I resonate with, with what you said. I think that's something that's been missing in my life. And just recently, I, I can't remember if I've mentioned this or not before, but I've started to add a little bit of reflection to my, weekly reviews, in addition to just doing the task reviews and kind of organizing the work.

And I got to tell you, that is making a pretty big difference for me.

[00:28:53] Steve: Okay.

[00:28:54] Tyler: So I highly recommend something like that. If you haven't, if you're, if you're feeling that same thing, I think it could make a big [00:29:00] difference for you as well, for anybody, you know, making, make some space to reflect on these types of things.

Like what are the right things to be doing?

[00:29:09] Steve: Do you have a particular structure for inducing that thinking, like journaling or something like that?

[00:29:16] Tyler: I I do. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's very, very basic, but maybe that's good news because maybe it doesn't take much, you know what I mean? Like maybe, maybe that's really good news. So at the end of every day, most days, I just make a small bullet point list of anything significant that happened that day. And then I write down one thing that I learned that I thought was significant. And then I just free write a little bit if I have time. So usually these, these little journals, so it's kind of journaling basically, but it's those three things, what significant things happen today. What was the best thing that I learned, and then any additional thoughts, but that's not really where, where this happens.

So I do that every day. But where, where, where I really get to reflect, kind of and connect to what, what am [00:30:00] I doing? Am I doing the right things? Is actually kind of at the weekly level where I review all the things I wrote every day. And then I have some other questions, uh, in my weekly review reflection questions specifically. We'll probably do a whole episode on this, on reflection and reviews and things, but some of those things are like what were, looking back on the entries that I made throughout the week, what were some of the most enjoyable events of the week? I like that one because It makes me think about, of all the things I'm doing, like, what do I like? You know, what, what makes me feel good? What, and am I doing enough of those?

Could I be doing more? That kind of thing. And I have a question that just says, what were the three big wins of the week? So accomplishments or something. And that kind of, that a lot of times. I'm just surprised because a lot of times my big wins for the week are maybe not what I would expect like, yes, reasonably often it's like a big project got turned in at work or I accomplished a goal with, uh, work [00:31:00] or my business or something.

Other times though, it's like I was on the phone with my mom and it was just like the best thing that happened that week or, you know what I mean? And so it's just, I don't know, just thinking through those things has really helped just kind of noticing. That's all I'm doing is just noticing.

[00:31:13] Steve: Cool. Thanks for sharing. I like that. I might take some of those ideas.

[00:31:18] Tyler: Yeah, I've got some templates that I use that I can, you can take a look at and pick and choose if you want to try any of them out.

[00:31:26] Steve: I would like that.

[00:31:27] Tyler: It's helped me kind of separate and differentiate between what I think I should, what I feel I should be doing in life and what I actually, like actually, actually want to be doing in life. If that makes any sense.

[00:31:41] Steve: Say that again?

[00:31:43] Tyler: Doing this exercise has helped me differentiate between what I feel like I should be doing. Should is the operative word there. Versus what I actually want to be doing.

[00:31:55] Steve: Ah, okay.

[00:31:56] Tyler: So it should be kind of obligation, you know, usually like external forces, right? Like, yeah, [00:32:00] I got to do this or I'll lose my job. Or like, I got to do this because I like this person and they asked me for a favor and I should do it because I like them or they're my friend or, you know, most of them are good things.

Very few of them are bad things, but there is a, like I said, I'm, I'm often surprised when I think about what were my biggest wins, what were the most enjoyable things. There's no right or wrong answers on any of these, but it just helps me zero in on like, okay, these appear to be the things that matter the most to me.

And perhaps unsurprisingly, the pattern is family a lot of the time.

[00:32:32] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:32:34] Tyler: And then anything that makes me feel like I'm doing high quality work at my job or with my clients. And there's others, but those are just some patterns that I've noticed.

[00:32:43] Steve: That's really interesting. Okay. Yeah. The noticing and the patterns, that seems like a really useful outcome of this kind of analysis, reflection.

[00:32:55] Tyler: yeah, yeah. It's, it's been, well, it sounds like we've both felt [00:33:00] like we could use some more of this in our lives. And I'm, uh, I'm not really that much further ahead of you. I only started doing this just a couple months ago. So it's pretty new, but, turns out all those YouTubers who talk about this stuff are right. It's cool. It's fun. It's useful.

[00:33:16] Steve: Yeah. Well, Greg in this book several times mentions journaling, uh, and that He has a habit of daily journaling, even if it's just a little bit. So there's definitely something there.

[00:33:29] Tyler: Well, actually, so that's interesting. Uh, that's what intimidated me about this at first is like, when I think of journaling, I think about like a narrative explanation of what happened that day. I don't know, for some reason, that's something that I've historically done.

[00:33:42] Steve: Yeah, me

[00:33:42] Tyler: I don't have time for that every day, you know, but just, but this, what I'm doing now is just like a couple of bullet points of significant things.

Oh, that's, that's, that's been a game changer for me. It's a lot easier. It's a lot faster and it's definitely more reflective.

[00:33:58] Steve: Yeah,

[00:33:58] Tyler: isn't a time and a place for [00:34:00] all kinds of journaling, but yeah,

[00:34:03] Steve: right.

[00:34:03] Tyler: nice. So somehow we got to journaling from essentialism, but reflection is a way. You must reflect if you want to understand what is essential to you.

[00:34:13] Steve: Right.

Who would this book be good for?
---

[00:34:15] Tyler: So who, who, who would this book be good for in your opinion?

[00:34:19] Steve: I'd say anybody who feels like they have more to do than they can. There's a lot of useful stuff in this book.

[00:34:30] Tyler: I would agree. I also say if you have A little voice inside your head or your heart that's telling you that you're, you feel busy, but you're not sure if you feel productive or that you're doing things that matter. That's another,

I feel like this could be really powerful for you because it'll help you kind of explore that a little bit and see, and give you some like ideas of how you could adjust, make adjustments. He talks about this as editing your time, editing your [00:35:00] life. So it's not like a giant thing you do all at once, but as you go, um, let's see, I'll just read what he says. He says, "Editing our time and activities continuously allows us to make more minor but deliberate adjustments along the way." I just like that. This is a process.

This is a life we're talking about here, right? We don't have to solve it. And then we're done, right? In fact, that's impossible, but, um, Editing. I just love that kind of metaphor.

[00:35:29] Steve: Yeah, I liked that editing metaphor as well. Little efforts, like the compounding effect of little efforts all going in the direction that you want them to. Not little efforts scattered in lots of different directions,

[00:35:46] Tyler: which way. Yeah.

[00:35:48] Steve: focused.

[00:35:49] Tyler: Well, it's a great book. I, like I said, I've read it multiple times. I would recommend it to the people we mentioned before, but also anyone.

[00:35:56] Steve: Great book. I, uh, I think I would like to [00:36:00] read it again later, like a year or two from now. I'm sure I'll get different things out of it

every time I read it. But there's a lot of good tools, and he doesn't tell you what your thing should be.

[00:36:16] Tyler: Right.

[00:36:17] Steve: like tools for helping you discover that, because it's about what you want to make of your life.

[00:36:24] Tyler: Okay. So Steve, uh, we've talked about a lot of the different ideas in this book, how they apply to ourselves and our own lives. And it's been a nice little therapy session along the way, I think for us.

[00:36:35] Steve: I feel very vulnerable right now.

[00:36:37] Tyler: I know, I know. That's why, you know, sometimes when we record these podcasts, there's like big stretches of silence that we cut out in the editing, but really it's us just like.

I don't know, realizing that we need to change. I don't know, or like wondering what we're doing with our lives. It's great. It's great. So, um, do you have a quote from the book that you'd like to leave us with as we wrap up this episode, [00:37:00] Steve?

[00:37:00] Steve: Uh, here's, here's one. At the beginning of every chapter he has a quote from lots of different folks and they usually like a sentence or two, but this, this one, uh, is one that I highlighted. " Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough." Josh Billings.

[00:37:20] Tyler: Amen.

[00:37:22] Steve: "No is a complete sentence."

[00:37:24] Tyler: "No, is a complete sentence." Be thoughtful about the obligations you take on yourself and try to be aligned with yourself.

[00:37:31] Steve: Very good. Thanks, Tyler.

[00:37:34] Tyler: All right. Yeah. Thanks, Steve. It was a good discussion. We'll catch everybody on the next episode of It's Not About The Money.